All three Maine Township High School District 207 schools were recognized among the best in Illinois in the 2021 U.S. News and World Report rankings released recently.
College readiness, college curriculum breadth, math and reading proficiency/performance, performance of underserved students and graduation rate were all factors for the rankings. Data sources included:
- U.S. Department of Education “Common Core of Data” – school level demographic and other profile information transmitted by ISBE
- State SAT testing (2018-2019 data was used)
- College Board (Advanced Placement, 2018-2019 data was used)
“We are pleased that all three of our high schools continue to be recognized as among the best in Illinois and the nation by U.S. News and World Report and other similar ranking services,” says Superintendent Ken Wallace. “A couple of key areas to be noted, however, are that the rankings don’t reflect the fastest growing set of college courses our students are taking, dual credit courses. These courses give our students actual college transcripts that almost always have more value to our students than AP courses do. In addition, all of our District 207 high schools are true public high schools that educate the full array of eligible students, while these ranking systems include selective enrollment “magnet schools” that do not enroll all students. Therefore, it’s not an apples to apples comparison.”
Maine South High School was ranked 30th in Illinois, Maine East High School was ranked 124th and Maine West High School was ranked 134th. All three schools are ranked in the top 25% of all U.S. high schools and in the top 18% within Illinois.
“Additionally, the rankings don’t include the high level of specific supports like our nationally recognized career advisement program that adds incredible value to our students’ career searches in ways that the rankings services can’t begin to quantify,” Wallace says. “The good news is that the national discussion around school debt, as well as career and education paths, seems to finally be catching up to the work we have done here for several years to try to impact this harmful trend to our students.”
The rankings utilized data from sources outside the school district to rank nearly 18,000 public high schools in all 50 states and nearly 650 schools in Illinois.